Oh dear. I’m quite sure this isn’t what Lawrence Gonzi said or meant
Published:
May 27, 2012 at 3:14pm
A couple of days ago, I had a mini-tussle on this blog with two Maltese so-called interpreters in Brussels who didn’t know the difference between interpreting and translating.
This illustrates the difference, and he pitfalls of neither being done correctly.
timesofmalta.com reports:
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He must be taking over from Labour.
Politics has come down to the ground floor, which is where most Maltese homes have their kitchen.
At this rate, parliament will meet at the Yellow Garage.
Labour is scandalised because Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici might not resign.
Yet AST, il-Guy, Debono Grech and the rest of the dinosaurs who were sacked by the people are now being forced down our gullet again.
At least they weren’t given a golden handshake and a cushy job like Helen D’Amato and Louis Galea.
[Daphne – Hi, Franco. I wondered when you’d turn up again.]
What about Louis Grech? Had he not got a golden handshake of some sort, too, or am I mistaken?
Louis Galea has just been appointed audit dean by the European court of auditors last March.
Helen D’Amato’s current role is anything but a cushy job.
How’s the recodification going?
You had to mention Louis…
Those interpretors, by being in the job, expalined rightly the difference between translating – by the use of the written word – and interpeting – by the use of the spoken word. Naturally the two concepts are related but are used in different contexts.
[Daphne – David, try to follow what I’m about to tell you. The difference between translating and interpreting is NOT that the one is in writing and the other is spoken. Interpreting means listening to what the other person says and then synthesising it down to the gist. Translation is word for word. You are speaking, here, to somebody who knows this language far, far better than you do, and certainly far, far better than the people dispatched to Brussels to translate and interpret do, too.]
A translation can be a literal one as the word for word or else which translates also the meaning of the text in a way compatible with the languge being translated into. Interpetation also involves translating, what a person is saying. It can be a word for word interpretation or one which conveys the meaning of what is being said.
Confusion may arise as interpretation is often called in English simultaneous translation. In fact interpretation involves translation so the two terms are not mutually exclusive. However it is right to keep them distinct for the sake of clarity.
[Daphne – David, give it a rest. I know what I’m talking about.]
To add to the confusion the words ‘interpreters’ and ‘interpretation’ are actually used at official meetings of the Council of Ministers to refer to the people doing the job behind the glass.
Delegates are handed a sheet of paper at the beginning of the meeting listing the languages available for ‘interpretation’ rather than translation. Furthermore the EU Institutions refer to the careers of interpreter and translator respectively for the speaker and writer from one language to another.
I guess in a city (Brussels) where the vast majority are non-native English speakers it’s one of those words lost in translation.
This is why we pay clowns from tax payer’s money to translate and interpret from il-Linga tal_bigilla when we could have used Englsh as the language
I have had to listen to simultaneous renderings from interpreters during international gatherings for most of my diplomatic experience (over 30 years). Unfortunately, I was not present when these two exeriences took place.
In one, a speaker quoting Shakespeare was interpreted into French by a quotation from Moliere.
On the other occasion the interpreter from Japanese was lost for words, so he told his listeners that the speaker had said a joke which he could not translate, so he asked them to be kind enough to laugh.
During my experience in the CSCE I established a rapport with interpreters which came in useful in learning what was going on behind the scene.
Translation is different; more distant; less spontaneous and sometimes, unfortunately, manipulated.
David, you really haven’t understood the meaning of both words, which is so sad. I surely hope you are a translator and not an interpretor.